From a lack of visibility into infrastructure to licensing and governance issues, frustrating surprises await your migration to the cloud. Here’s a real-world look at how traditional companies are navigating the cloud’s less-documented challenges.

When the American Red Cross talks about mission-critical systems, it's referring to the blood supply that helps save lives. The non-profit organization manages 40% of the U.S.'s blood supply, so stability, reliability and tight security are of paramount concern, says DeWayne Bell, vice president of IT infrastructure and engineering.

A hospital is usually a pretty busy place, but the neonatal intensive care unit at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children has been buzzing with even more activity than is customary. Thanks to a new technology partnership, the hospital is working to use analytics to predict more accurately than ever before which premature babies are at most risk for disease and infection.

'Tis the season to begin ramping up online shopping activity, and for retailers that means doing all they can to ensure their websites are up, highly available and able to handle peak capacity. Looming in many IT managers' minds is the cautionary tale of Target, whose website crashed twice after it was inundated by an unprecedented number of online shoppers when the retailer began selling clothing and accessories from high-end Italian fashion company Missoni.

With the economy in a downturn, it's no surprise that companies have been slashing travel budgets. But at MetLife, officials say the focus is also on employees' quality of life, keeping them home as much as possible.

When Nikon decided to merge and consolidate customer data from more than 25 disparate sources into one system, officials didn't want the burden of maintaining it in-house, yet whatever they went with had to meet all their requirements and work picture-perfect.

A data storage crash is the last thing a collision-repair shop needs to worry about. So when John Sweigart realized that the software he was using to manage his business was no longer compatible with the way he was backing up data, he knew it was time for a different option.

The last thing a collision repair shop needs to worry about is a data-storage crash. So when John Sweigart realized the software he'd been using to manage his business, The Body Shop, was no longer compatible with the way they were backing up data, he knew it was time for a different option.

For a brief period last winter, Lisa Huss toyed with the idea of quitting her job. A customer service representative at transportation and logistics provider Schneider National Inc. in Green Bay, Wis., Huss had an offer for a similar position in the transportation department of a local company. After talks with her managers that led to a promotion and a raise, she changed her mind.

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